Tim Bream took the witness stand Wednesday during the continuation of a preliminary hearing for 16 brothers charged criminally after Piazza died. Bream lived inside the Beta Theta Pi house as an adviser.

Bream's attorney sought to keep his client out of the witness chair, but Magisterial District Judge Allen Sinclair rejected his motion and instead allowed defense attorneys to question Bream if the queries focused directly on their client's guilt or innocence.

Leonard Ambrose, the defense attorney for Joseph Sala, is the one who subpoenaed Bream into court Wednesday and he tried to get Bream to address whether he was the "Tim" referenced in a text message exchange between two fraternity brothers, Ed Gilmartin and Lars Kenyon, about a group message.

Gilmartin: Get rid of the social exec GM

Kenyon: Just so you know, I think they still get archived.

Gilmartin: Right. But it's just so people don't get screen shots or anything that could leak to the media. Tim's idea, as a precaution.

Kenyon: They actually don't get archived when the leader deletes them. I just checked.

Gilmartin: Okay. Good.

Ambrose asked Bream: "Tim refers to you, right?"

Before Bream could answer, District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller objected to the relevance of the question. She argued that the text messages in question did not come from nor refer to his client, Sala. Sinclair sustained her objection and wouldn't allow the direct question.

But Bream offered a possible explanation for the scenario in his answer to a follow-up question after Ambrose asked whether Bream spoke to Gilmartin or Sala in the hours after Bream learned of Piazza's injuries.

Bream said he couldn't recall specifically, but noted that he called all the brothers together for a meeting in the great hall about noon and had invited grief counselors.

During that meeting, Bream said he urged the brothers to stay off social media with regard to what happened out of respect for Piazza and his family.

"Because of the unfortunate accident, the tragedy, we met," Bream said. "At that point, we talked about saying off social media out of respect for Tim Piazza and out of respect to his family."

"Do not Tweet or use social media at all to discuss the unfortunate accident," Bream said. "That's what was discussed at that time, with a group of 30 to 40 young men, CAPS (campus) counselors and one of the brother's father was there."

Bream spent more than two hours on the stand before being released just before 11 a.m.